• Question: When treating an infertile woman with IVF, how long would you attempt the treatment before deeming it unsuccessful? (i.e. The woman was somehow unable to become pregnant.)

    Asked by jorgaliee to Claire, Greg, Vicki on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Vicki Onions

      Vicki Onions answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Hi
      This is affected by several things
      1) if you’re having IVF on the NHS, then the number of treatment cycles you can have depends on your local health authroity and how many cycles they can offer you based on their funding decisions
      2) if you are self funding then you can go on for as long as you can afford…or can mentally and emotionally cope with (this is a BIG factor – IVF is hugely stressful for all involved)

      But as to how long, medically you would be advised to go for, i’m not sure. The clinic would have done tests to see the cause of your ifertility (poor eggs, poor sperm, blocked oviduct, problems with the embryo implanting) and so that would give the doctor an idea how to advise how long to go for.

    • Photo: Claire O'Donnell

      Claire O'Donnell answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Hello again jorgaliee,
      Good question! Knowing when to give up is important but very hard for the couple to come to terms with. The research evidence shows that the liklihood of becoming pregnant is the same over the first three IVF treatments (each treatment is called a cycle), around a 27% chance each time. This is the number that the NHS tried to provide but in some areas they’ve decided they can’t afford it and offer two or sometimes one cycle of treatment. After three treatments, that the chance of getting pregnant falls. Largely this is because most people who are going to get pregnant from IVF do so after the first cycle – happily for them:). Scientists think that this is because these couples in whom the woman who get pregnant firrst time are the ones who have only mild problems. So for people beginning the second cycle, the fact that they didn’t get pregnant first time means that they are a little less likely to get pregnant although the effect isn’t really big. There are other things too. Sometimes the drug dose used in the first cycle mightn’t have been exactly right to get the woman to produce enough eggs for example, everyone is different.
      IVF is very hard both emotionally and physically and most clinics would suggest that a couple might need to think about stopping IVF teatments if the couple were getting up to something like their 7th, 8th or 9th attempt because it was clearly unlikely to work. I think few clinics would agree to treat someome who had say 10 previus treatments. In reality because most people would be paying for the IVF themselves by that point it’s uncommon for people to have more than about 5 or 6 attampts in total

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